How to Find a Killer on Ancestry

Or a birth parent for an adoptee

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Ok. I have never found a killer on Ancestry.com. But I know I could if I had the right information. I have found birth parents for people by using the same techniques forensic genealogists use to find killers or rapists. I would say it is fun if it weren’t such a serious undertaking. Here is how I do it.

The first thing I need to find a birth parent is for my client to take an Ancestry.com DNA test. Then we wait an interminable six weeks for the results so I can go to work.

Once the results come in, we need to create a blank family tree for my client.

The Ancestry DNA results come in three sections. The middle section of the DNA results, called “DNA Matches,” is by far the most important for finding people. This section displays all the people who have taken the Ancestry.com test who also share sections of DNA with the person tested. It will rank them in order of how much shared DNA they have, from most to least. To catch a killer or find a birth parent, this is the starting point.

Let’s imagine we have DNA evidence from a crime scene. The first step would be to get DNA samples from the victim, the first responders, and others who may have contaminated the crime scene evidence. Then once those people are ruled out, we submit the unknown crime scene DNA…